cinema dossier

Tag Archives: French cinema

Kinda like how I was wrong about Stan Laurel appearing in The Bellboy.

At least I think I was wrong.

Did I say that?

Because it turns out it was an impersonator.

But back to this here movie.

I couldn’t appreciate it on first viewing (all couple minutes I lasted) because Jerry’s style was so pungent.

Jerry Lewis.

A new star in my firmament.

Peter Sellers still reigns supreme in my pantheon.

And Sacha Baron Cohen still takes the cake for living comedians.

But Jerry Lewis is breathing down Peter’s neck.

And so this film ranks up there.

The Nutty Professor is still probably the best.

And Cinderfella holds a dear spot in my heart because it was the film which proved to me that Lewis was not merely a one-hit-wonder.

And The Ladies Man is really one of the artful, top Lewis films.

And so The Disorderly Orderly is in this rarefied air.

It’s better than The Bellboy.

It’s better than The Family Jewels.

Hell… Maybe I should watch those again!

But really.

Jerry Lewis was super-talented.

Indeed, let’s delineate a bit.

Lewis directed (and starred in) The Nutty Professor.

But Cinderfella, an earlier film, was directed by the great Frank Tashlin.

Why great?

Lewis deftly directed The Ladies Man while starring in it as well.

But Tashlin was back as director for this film (The Disorderly Orderly).

And so Tash was integral to the career of Jerry Lewis.

I really can’t imagine Jerry’s oeuvre without a Cinderfella.

It is indispensable.

While The Disorderly Orderly might be slightly less timeless, it is still quite an achievement.

Verily, it is a strange film (truth be told).

Indeed, about 3/4ths the way through, our film takes a turn towards dark, psychological energy.

Dreams.

Nightmares, really.

Shame.

Transgression.

Jerry Lewis as a peeping tom is bizarre.

As a stalker.

[especially considering that the real-life Lewis would be stalked in the ’90s by a man named Gary Benson (who subsequently spent four years in prison…ostensibly for stalking Lewis {according to the infallible Wikipedia})]

And then there are those foreigners who worked in French (to varying extents) such as Luis Buñuel and Max Ophüls.

But the French cinema has given us other visionaries contemporaneous to Godard.

Alain Resnais. Eric Rohmer. François Truffaut. These are just a few that come to mind.

And until Netflix (and even the Criterion Collection itself) gets beyond to utter genius of Abbas Kiarostami, we will know little of the Iranian cinema beyond its undisputed master.

[Indeed, Netflix has not even broached the true cinema of Iran by featuring Kiarostami…as far as I know. It is solely the Criterion Collection which is to thank for exposing people to films like Taste of Cherry and Close-Up.]

But I must give Netflix their due.

They have made available the very fine Romanian film under review.

Yet, before we delve into that…I would like to delineate exactly what makes Romania different as far as being “the future” of cinema (in relation to, say, Iran…for instance).

The simple answer is that there are multiple genius (genius!) directors working in Romania.

They may not (certainly not) get the budgets they deserve, but their output is of the highest, most sublime quality.

And, sadly, Abbas Kiarostami is no longer among the living.

But it bears mentioning the auteurs of Romanian “new wave” cinema.

Cristi Puiu. Cătălin Mitulescu. Cristian Mungiu.

And the director of Comoara: Corneliu Porumboiu.

The Treasure must not have been an easy film to make.

Indeed, the very end of the film evinces a directorial sigh of relief (if I am interpreting it correctly).

Let me just say this: nothing much happens in this film.

Indeed, this might be the type of film which illustrates the different way in which film critics view films (as opposed to most moviegoers).

Not to mince words, my guess is that most people (98%?) would find The Treasure boring.

But I loved it!

The defining characteristic of this film is tension.

But it is not the type of tension which strings us along in a film such as Rear Window.

No.

The tension here is far more mundane in comparison.

And yet, there is real inspiration at work in Porumboiu’s mise-en-scène here.

Toma Cuzin is our brooding “star”.

And he is very, very good.

But his “foil” is the Dudley-Moore-lookalike Adrian Purcărescu.

Cuzin is calm. And yet, the dreamer…

One might even think “gullible”.

Purcărescu is frazzled. Cynical. Either a conman of a saint. Hard to tell…

But the fellow who pulls it all together is Corneliu Cozmei.

He’s the man with the metal detectors.

Yes, two…

[this is a treasure hunt, after all!]

Cozmei is caught between the personalities of Cuzin and Purcărescu.

And yet he’s not just an innocent bystander (so to speak).

He may be the independent party in this whole treasure hunt, but he’s smack dab in the middle of a very tense situation.

Bogart fans will not be far off if they faintly recall the Sturm und Drang of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

I need a word. Just a word. A word. To start it off. Nothing fits. Frustration? Yes, perhaps. Ferment? That might work even better. It is a feeling. I search for it on the Internet. I cast my net to the blog sea. Ahh, Valentine’s Day… Yesterday. How I wanted to write, yet I abstained. Abstinence. Discipline. Youthful anarchy.

I needed a word. As so I sought. Abandoned, abandonment, abstract expressionism. No. Alex Chilton, Anna Karina. Yes. After two films she was back. Here. Anne Wiazemsky? No. We will wait for her at the Tout va bien café.

Art house, arthouse, Astruc? Yes. Alexandre. caméra–stylo. A free-flowing style. Freewheeling. Big Star, Bilinda Butcher? Yes. Feed me with your kiss. Do you know how to kiss? With the tongue? That’s correct. You stick your tongue out and I will kiss you on the cheek.

So I found my word? No. I found Bob Dylan, Boise, bored to tears. A phrase. Bresson. Wiazemsky. No, not yet. But, pickpocket. Yes. Money. A big stack of money!

Broken heart. Ok, now we are getting somewhere. And how does a heart break? Neil? Love. CSS. No, not the computer language. Language? We are barely passing English class. Romeo and Juliet. Verona. Valentine’s. The world’s shittiest Starbucks. Right by my house. Trust me. I’ve been to Starbucks in middle-of-nowhere Arizona…in a fucking Albertson’s. No, Target. Maybe Wal-Mart. No more depressing than the one by my house. Sure, the buck-toothed high school senior was not much on the eye candy scale, but I am living in the same wasteland. Neu Mexique. The place where they tested the bombs. Long ago. Trinity. I have become the destroyer of worlds.

No, the other CSS. Tired of being sexy. That one. And Cary Grant. Yes, my jacket’s at the dry cleaner…and I don’t have any money…so I won’t take off my coat. Tou bi or not tou bi contre votre poitrine: dat iz ze question. Something like that. Claude Brasseur. What a brute! What a fucking asshole!! !

Chris Bell. The singer. The white one. Yeah. Dead. No. Cinémathèque Française. O-kay! Now we are getting somewhere. But I keep searching. The English classes are not enough. Maybe the Chinese will prevail. Sami Frey is betting Chinese: 5-2.

Cocteau. Yeah. We’ll sit in the car and listen to the radio. No, I’m not allowed to do things like that. Hey, how old are you anyway!?! Conlon Nancarrow? Yes. And the last time Michel Legrand on the big screen [English broken].

When it should be sad, the jazz kicks up impossibly happy. Happily. Hereusement? I don’t know. I am on the other side of the pond.

Crying. Depressed, depression, depress-o-rama. And then she feeds a tiger.

Doldrums. No. The other ones. Not the horse latitudes. Ennui. Yes. She is bored, but she doesn’t know she’s bored…until she’s not bored anymore. Euros Childs. No. Completely inappropriate.

Henri Langlois. Yes. Now we’re back on track. A name. We needed a name. Like Tarantino. His production company. Like the car scene with Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson. Same thing. They’re talking about nothing. But they are incredibly rude. Crude. Blow a fucker’s brains out. 2.0

But the travesty is that Godard is forgotten in France. ;that Quentin is cooler than Jean-Luc. Quel dommage.

Howard Hawks. To Jean-Luc. And then who? David Lynch? Not very often. Too many misses. Same with Harmony Korine. But those two are as good as it gets now.

Psychogeography. Clichy. The Louvre in 9:43…surpassing Jimmy Johnson of San Francisco.

AND THE SUBWAY SCENE!!!

Regret, rejection? Yes. Print it. The man sleeping on the sidewalk. Teddy bear or TNT. Richard Hell or Richard Lloyd. Routine. Buy groceries. Aunt Victoria. Like the Queen. And a big pile of money upstairs with the door unlocked and just a jacket draped over it. 200 million francs perhaps. In 10,000 franc notes.

Silver screen. It has to be silver, you fucks! Spider Man does not qualify. It has to be Louis Feuillade. Jurassic Park does not cut it. Did you see her thighs? So white. Black stockings over your heads. Undo the garters. It’s like Le Petit soldat all over again, but this time the terrorists are up and walking around. That’s what terrorists do. They terrify. Burglers burgle. Etc. No torture…handcuffed to the robinet.

I don’t have time for this shit. Shortcut. Dying. “Cheat death on the other side.” J. Spaceman.

Someone to be nice to me for like five minutes and then I’ll leave you alone. This was Jean-Luc “Cinema” Godard on fire.